While almost everyone, except the very wealthy, suffered from the Great Recession and its aftermath during the past five years, what is most distressing and dangerous for the future of America is the widening wealth gap among the races.
The average white family earns TWICE what the average African American or Hispanic family makes, and has SIX times the total wealth of the average minority family..
White families lost eleven percent of their wealth due to the recession, as compared to 44 percent for Hispanic families and 31 percent of black families.
Unless “Baby Bonds”, an investment in a child’s future, are given to all poor families, the future of minority youth to overcome their poverty and deprivation will be impossible, and the wealth gap will be impossible to narrow over future decades!
The just-released Census Bureau Report, “Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth, 2011,” (SECCUM) describes for the first time the demographic details of non-marital childbearing — and it is not a pretty picture.
From the Huffington “Puffington Compost”:
“While the birth rate for single women has greatly increased across all demographics — according to the report, which is based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the birth rate for single mothers in 2007 was 80 percent higher than it was in 1980, and 20 percent of that increase happened between 2002 and 2007 — the numbers are particularly high for recent mothers (mothers who gave birth in the previous 12 months) between age 20 and 24.
In 2011, 62 percent of women between ages 20 and 24 who had recently given birth were unmarried.
Among women ages 35 to 39, the percentage was considerably lower — 17 percent of women who recently gave birth were unmarried — but overall, 36 percent of the 4.1 million women who reported they had given birth in the past year were unmarried. That’s up from 31 percent in 2005.
The birthrate among single mothers also varied along educational, socioeconomic and racial barriers. Sixty-eight percent of black women who had given birth in the past year were unmarried, compared to 11 percent of Asian women, 43 percent of hispanics and 26 percent of non-Hispanic whites. Fifty-seven percent of recent mothers without a high school diploma were unmarried compared to nine percent of recent mothers with a bachelors degree or higher. Sixty-nine percent of recent mothers who came from households with incomes with $10,000, in contrast to nine percent of recent mothers with households earning $200,000 or more. ”
“http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/01/single-motherhood-increases-census-report_n_3195455.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women#slide=more269757 ”
We should no longer ignore the costly effects to both the children involved and societies at large of the increases in non-marital households simply because the political correctness police make it uncomfortable to address these facts; too much is at stake for the nation’s children.
I read somewhere, that the public costs of single motherhood is around $112 billion annually.In the end, it is the taxpayers who are paying through the nose for divorce and non-marital births. The rate of poverty for unmarried mothers is 5 times higher than for married couple families; poverty and fatherless families are inextricably linked. For decades, liberals, progressives, feminists and welfare advocates have tried to get to the bottom of the problems associated by the triad of out-of-wedlock childbearing, single motherhood, and child poverty. Heretofore, the solutions have been abortion and increased welfare dependency. I don’t need to ask, “How is that working for us?”
“When the sum total of our morality, both personal and public, consists of not being judgmental, we should not be surprised to find that there is little will to be concerned with more than the pursuit of whatever brings a moment of pleasure today with no regard for the effects this will have for anyone’s well-being tomorrow.” -Janice Shaw Crouse
The Report : http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-21.pdf
Juan, on this issue, I ABSOLUTELY AGREE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT with you, and in fact, just today, commented to an older gentleman about how terrible and unacceptable it is to have children out of wedlock, and how it damages those children and the entire nation. I have always been amazed at how many of my female students, going back thirty years, do not even attempt to hide that they are pregnant with a boyfriend, not a husband. This is NOT a good trend in any way, so you and I are in total agreement for a rare occasion! 🙂
I had a feeling we would agree on this one!
Must be the end of the world. Juan’s agreeing with Ron.